CX One on One with Jodi Reuven

In our “CX One on One” series, we meet the dynamic and talented team members behind the scenes at NiCE representing all the facets of the world’s #1 cloud native customer experience platform. We recently sat down with Jodi Reuven, NiCE’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, Product Quality Management (PQM) focused on the NiCE workforce engagement management (WEM) portfolio. Reuven was a featured speaker during Interactions 2023 where NiCE launched three new Enlighten AI-powered solutions.

Jodi Reuven celebrates demonstrating our new AI-powered Enlighten solutions for customers, agents and businesses at NiCE’s Interactions 2023 as a pivotal moment in her career.

But it was a quiet moment that happened off stage away from the spotlight that she cherishes just as much.

Reuven met many customers at Interactions, including one who talked about how their contact center plays a critical role in helping to strengthen communities. 

The conversation highlighted for Reuven why she’s passionate about her job and inspired by the everyday people who benefit from good customer service.

“An exchange I had with someone whose organization ensures that people with special needs can access health insurance just reinforces why I really love my job,” Reuven said.

“The customer shared more about how their contact center essentially is dedicated to making their community better by having infrastructure in place to make the people in their town healthier and happier,” she added.

‘I feel this very human connection to our solutions’

Just as she did in real time at Interactions, Jodi Reuven thrives on finding the human connection in customer experience.

“I feel super connected to what we do at NiCE. I would say at my core, I love being on the cutting edge of customer experience, helping contact centers leverage and innovate to provide a differentiated customer experience which goes leagues beyond,” she said.

It’s the human element in CX that energizes Reuven each day.  

“I feel this very human connection to our solutions. I like to think, at the end of the day, we all know what it feels like to be a customer at the other end that’s hoping for a positive, easy seamless experience,” she said.

For Reuven, the realization of the broader scope of the role customer experience has in the world inspires everything she and her team do. NiCE is a part of 8 billion interactions happening each year, or more than 20 million interactions a day that in some way our solutions are touching.

“I just think about all those human needs out there that are in some way influenced by the solutions that we've launched—and that these are all connected to what we’re doing day-to-day,” Reuven said. “I like the idea of thinking maybe we’re making a customer interaction better at some pivotal moment and making a customer’s day better.”

The human side of artificial intelligence

At Interactions, Jodi Reuven led a demonstration of the new Enlighten solutions in front of a global audience anxious for more artificial intelligence technology to level up CX.  

It’s clear AI is revolutionizing customer experience by providing businesses with personalized, efficient and proactive tools to streamline processes, enhance interactions and achieve higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

With generative AI, the possibilities are infinite.

“In many ways, the future of CX is already here,” she said. “We’re just continuing to develop out further, offer more cutting-edge, more innovative ways to use AI in customer service. I’m excited to see how it’s going to drive massive efficiencies and elevate customer experiences to truly unseen heights.”

As she explains, what may be lost in the buzz about generative AI is the human side. Reuven strives to break down how the technology will better serve both customers and agents for an enhanced experience.   

AI can analyze large amounts of customer data to create highly personalized experiences. By better understanding customer preferences, behavior and purchase history, a system with AI as the backbone can better suggest relevant products, services and content tailored to each individual customer interaction.

“Artificial intelligence technology can further analyze interactions and adopt the brand’s tone of speaking to customers to provide more personalized, more efficient customer experiences,” she said.

Learning the value of adaptability, camaraderie and collaboration

Adaptability, camaraderie and collaboration.

Reuven quickly lists these traits when asked what best prepared her for a career in customer service.

Currently living is Israel, Reuven spent most of her childhood traveling back and forth from America to Israel to visit family. She found the two cultures were different, and the experience navigating the differences equipped her to be flexible in any situation.

“I had to understand first of all that there’s not just one way to live or to be,” Reuven said. “I learned to more readily accept change and differences, and I think that’s something that's critical in a marketing role.”

She describes each workday as dramatically different, especially when looking at the scope of a changing world in CX.

“When you think about self-service and asynchronous digital channels, chats could happen over several days until a transaction interaction is complete. We’re also talking about evolving AI and generative AI capabilities amid growing, changing customer demands,” she said. “Every day the market is different and the expectations are different. I think growing up with an adaptive way of living and thinking—and never having a fixed mindset helped set me up for the pace of the CX industry.”

Reuven laughs as she shares another personal experience that helped prepare her for the career dynamic of customer service.

“My background in competitive sports prepared me for this. I’m a terrible athlete,” she said.

She tried nearly every single sport at her high school yet never made it off the bench.

“The fact that I was not a particularly strong athlete didn’t really deter me from playing. I love sports and wanted to be part of the experience. That really taught me at a young age the value of camaraderie and collaboration,” Reuven said.

In the realm of customer experience working with her team, camaraderie and collaboration are invaluable.

“I think I came to understand that I’m my happiest when I’m in this team environment, working toward a common goal with a group of amazing individuals whom I revere and admire,” Reuven said. “At NiCE, there’s no such thing as a benchwarmer. We’re all contributing and feel a sense of competitiveness—not with each other but within the industry to be the best at what we do.”

If you weren’t in CX …

When we asked Reuven what she would be doing if she weren’t in CX, she said she would head to the beach. But not for a chill day of rest and relaxation.  

“If I could do anything and drop everything right now, I would be a professional beach volleyball player,” she said. “I love the idea of spending time on the beach and playing a sport I love to watch.”

Or she would pursue a career dedicated to finding a solution to climate change.

“I get such a joy from working in teams and collaboration. And if there’s ever a need for collaboration, it’s in looking for a solution to climate change. I feel like we can all get together on a global level and solve this,” she said.

Proudest achievements (so far)

Reuven feels immense pride in her family, parenting her three children under the age of 5 and getting to know the human beings they’re becoming.

But parenting, she notes, is an evolving role.

“In a way, I can’t say I'm proud yet—it’s a work in progress,” Reuven said. “I feel like parenting is a constant. I think I’ll say I’m proud when they’ve become independent humans, and start taking the world by storm and find what they love to do.”

Just like marketing, parenting is a constant learning experience, she said.

“You think you know your target audience,” Reuven said. “You think you know who you’re talking to, but that’s a false assumption because the target audience is changing every day, like our children, and they have new needs, new thoughts and new ideas.”

Reuven also counts her relocation from America to Israel right after college as one of her proudest achievements, learning a new language and acclimating to a new culture.

Embracing challenges to ‘do hard things’

After reading a book by Glennon Doyle, Reuven started incorporating the famous quote, “We can do hard things,” as her mantra.

“If you’re stuck, just get through the hard thing because there’s always going to be a reward like personal development or growth at the end,” Reuven said.

The saying can work on a professional or personal level. There’s something people refer to as “impostor syndrome” where someone may feel they fall short of expectations whether they’ve taken a new career position or find themselves in some other situation.

“Reminding one’s self that there’s an opportunity for growth and that ‘We can do hard things’ is so powerful,” Reuven said. “I also use it on the parenting path, to show my children that it’s OK to acknowledge when something is difficult. By embracing the challenge to get to the other side, we come out better people than if we choose to give up.”